Echesspedia

HALF-BATTERY

In chess composition, an alignment of Chessmen identical to the formation of a battery except that two attacking men are interposed between other piece and enemy King.

HALF-OPEN

A file containing one or more pawns belonging to the opponent, and none belonging to oneself.

HALF-PIN

Appeared for the first time in 1915. A pin in which the Chessman subject to the pin may move along the same line (file, rank or diagonal) which it shares with the attacker.

HALLL OF FAME

 Formed in the US in 1986. Its members include Lev Alburt, Hans Berliner, Pal Benko, Arthur Bisguier, Walter Browne, Donald Byrne, Robert Byrne, Jack Collins, Arthur Dake, Arnold Denker, Ed Edmondson, Arpad Elo, Larry Evans, John Fedorowicz Fine, Bobby Fischer, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Gisela Gresser, Kenneth Harkness, Hermann Helms,  Burt Hochberg, Israel Horowitz, Isaac Kashdan, George Koltanowski, Sam Loyd, George Mackenzie, Frank Marshall, Paul Morphy, Victor Palciauskas, Harry Pillsbury, Fred Reinfeld, Sammy Reshesky, Wilhelm Steinitz, and Milan Vukcevich.

HAMILTON-RUSSEL CUP

 A challenge FIDE Cup for the winner of the men’s team in chess Olympiads. This cup is a golden vessel made of silver, 54 cm high and set on a wooden basement. It was presented to FIDE by the Hon. Frederick Georges Hamilton-Russell (12.01.1867-03.09.1941) and donated to the winner of  the International Team Tournament of London, 1927.. All team names which have been awarded with this Cup since 1927 are engraved on the surface. The first replica can be found at the Chess Museum in Moscow.

HANDBUCH DES SHACHSPIELS

One of first opening-theoretical guide (500 pages) with 376 devoted to openings and 124 to endgames. The author of the idea was Paul Rudolf von Bilguer and was composed during the period of 1839-40, finished and published by Tassilo von der Lasa in 1843. There were 4 more publications (editions) issued in 1852, 1858, 1864 and 1874. The 6th edition was published by Constantin Schwede with Antonius van der Linde in 1880 and the 7th under the edition of Emil Shallopp with Johan Berger and Louis Paulsen in 1891, the 8th under edition of Karl Schlechter in cooperation with Siegbert Tarrasch, Richard Teichmann, Kohtz, Hans Koch and Rudolf Spielmann. Some additions were published later by Mieses in 1922 and Hans Kmoch in 1930.

HANG, HANGING

To be unprotected and exposed to capture. Slang term to describe a piece left en prise.

HANGING PAWNS

Steinitz’s term for two adjacent Pawns which are on the fourth rank, cannot be supported by other Pawns, are not passed Pawns, and which are on half-open files. About hanging Pawns in end-game Euwe said: hanging Pawns are nearly always weak.

HARKNESS SCORE

Tie-breaking system applicable to Swiss tournaments. The scores of the opponents of each of the tied players are summed, first leaving out the highest and lowest scores. In tournaments with a large number of rounds, two or more of the highest and lowest scores may be deleted. Also called the Median Score.

HEDGEHOG

A resilient structure, normally for Black, in which most of the pawns are placed on his third rank and the bishops are usually fianchettoed. The defence has been adopted by the likes of Mikhail Tal, Bent Larsen, Michael Adams, Garry Kasparov, Gata Kamsky, and Anatoly Karpov. In the 2009 Sergei Shipov has published a first volume on the defence, his book was highly recommended by Garry Kasparov. In the following example Black reaches the typical position after its 12th move. Similar positions can be reached in the Sicilian Defence or in the English Opening.

HELPMATE

A type of Fairy Chess problem invented by Max Lange in 1854, where both sides cooperate in mating the black King. By convention Black moves first. All moves in a helpmate must be legal: the “cooperation” does not extend to putting one’s own King in check or playing other kinds of illegal moves such as capturing one’s own pieces.

HELP-STALEMATE

A problem genre analogous to the helpmate except that White and Black cooperate to get Black stalemated rather than checkmated. Help-stalemates follow the same conventions as helpmates regarding stipulation, move numbering, and legality.

HETERODOX CHESS

Another name for Fairy Chess.

HEXAGONAL CHESS

A variation of chess invented by S. Welisch in 1912 and perfected by W. Glinski in 1949. A form of chess played on a board tiled by 91 small hexagons rather than squares. There are nine pawns and three Bishops on each side in addition to the normal number of other pieces. The moves of the pieces are amended accordingly.

HIARCS

 Higher Intelligence Auto Response Chess System. Written by Mark Uniacke of England, HIARCS was one of the world’s strongest microcomputer chess programs created in 1980. In 1991 it won the world amateur microcomputer championship title at Vancouver and in 1993 it succeeded with the title of microcomputer world chess champion. In April, 1997 it defeated IM Deen Hegott 4:2 in a 6 game match. In 2005 it drew with Evgeny Bareev 4-4 but defeated Jan Gustafson, Sergei Volkov and Piotr Bobras.  In 2007 the program won the 17th IPCCC Paderborn. Garry Kasparov, said “HIARCS is much better positionally than Deep Blue”. HIARCS (Pocket Fritz 4 powered by HIARCS) is the only handheld chess program in the world which has won Grandmaster tournaments. In August 2009 it won the 2009 Mescosur Cup in Buenos Aires, scoring an incredible undefeated 9½/10 points (9 wins, one draw) and a performance of 2938 Elo. The chess software engine is available for Pocket PC, Palm, Apple iPhone & iPod Touch, PDAs, PC and Macintosh computers

HIPPOPOTAMUS

A defence adopted by Boris Spassky in 1963 (game 12 and 16) developed by J.J. Thompson in the 1950′s. Black chooses the following pattern: g6, Bg7, d6, Nd7, b6, Ne7 and Bb7.

Also a piece used in place of the Rook in some earlier form of chess in some countries